The history of cannabis is a complicated one. And in order to truly appreciate and respect the plant and its benefits as a conscious consumer, we believe it’s integral to understand its origins and history. So, let’s start from the top, shall we?

Cannabis’ ancient roots

Cannabis is one of documented history’s oldest cultivated crops, dating back to 8,000+ BC. Cannabis plants are believed to have evolved throughout Central Asia, specifically in the regions we now know as Mongolia and southern Siberia. The oldest known written record on cannabis use comes from the Chinese Emperor Shen Nung in 2,727 BC.

Between 2,000 BC and 1,000 BC, cannabis made its way to India. It was so revered there that it is mentioned in one of the ancient Sanskrit Vedic poems as being one of “five kingdoms of herbs…which release us from anxiety.” Medical use of the plant in the Middle East is recorded in 700 BC in the Venidad, an ancient Persian religious text. Most ancient cultures referenced cannabis as herbal medicine and to create fiber, clothing, paper, sails and rope, and its seeds and leaves as food.

There is also evidence of using it to get high as well. An ancient Greek historian named Herodotus described the Scythians—a large group of Iranian nomads in Central Asia—inhaling the smoke from burning cannabis seeds and flowers to get high. These early hemp plants had very low levels of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the cannabinoid responsible for cannabis’ intoxicating effects. Over time, cultures may have cultivated some varieties to produce higher levels of THC for use in religious ceremonies or healing practice.

The history of cannabis cultivation in the Americas dates back to the early colonists, who grew cannabis for textiles and rope. The Spanish encouraged hemp farming in South American colonies in the mid-1500s. Later, the English did the same at Jamestown in the early 1600s. There, cannabis became a popular commercial crop together with tobacco. By the late 1700s, cannabis farming had taken root in Mexico, as well as in the Spanish colonies in California.

Throughout its expansion across the globe, more and more doctors and healers used cannabis for its medicinal benefits. In the 1830s, Sir William Brooke O’Shaughnessy, an Irish doctor studying in India, found that cannabis extracts could help lessen stomach pain and vomiting in people suffering from cholera.

By the late 1800s, cannabis extracts were sold in pharmacies and doctors’ offices throughout Europe and the United States to treat stomach problems and other ailments.

Cannabis stakes a claim in the U.S.

By 1850, cannabis had fully caught on in the U.S. It even appeared in the United States Pharmacopeia, which set the standards for all prescription and over-the-counter medications. It approved cannabis as a treatment for a number of diseases including neuralgia, tetanus, typhus, cholera, rabies, dysentery, alcoholism, opiate addiction, anthrax, leprosy, incontinence, gout, convulsive disorders, tonsillitis, insanity, excessive menstrual bleeding, and uterine bleeding, as well as others.

Cannabis Prohibition in the U.S.

Political and racial factors in the 20th century led to the criminalization of cannabis in the United States, though its legal status is changing in many places.

In the 1930s, during the Great Depression, cannabis became the target of a racist movement against the plant and still affect how drug policies are carried out in the U.S. today. When prohibition was repealed in the middle of the Great Depression, bureaucrats started looking for another target. At the time, cannabis was depicted as being used mostly by Mexican and Black communities. Therefore, bureaucrats painted the drug—and the communities using it—as a threat to the already crippled country. Although the plant had previously been known as “cannabis” in the US, anti-cannabis activists began referring to it by its Spanish name, “marihuana,” to further tie its use to immigrants. Corporate interests and anti-immigrant sentiment began to turn people in the U.S. against all forms of cannabis States started passing laws prohibiting all forms of it out of fear of social degeneration and addition.

In 1930, Harry Aslinger became the first commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN) and undertook multiple efforts to make cannabis illegal in all states. In 1937, the Marijuana Tax Act put cannabis under the regulation of the Drug Enforcement Agency, criminalizing possession of the plant throughout the country. Twenty-nine states outlawed cannabis by 1931.

In 1937, the Marijuana Tax Act was passed, essentially making the plant illegal in the United States. The Act imposed an excise tax on the sale, possession, or transfer of all cannabis products, effectively criminalizing all but industrial uses of the plant. More stringent measures followed. In 1952, the Boggs Act provided stiff mandatory sentences for offenses involving a variety of drugs, including cannabis.

Fifty-eight-year-old farmer Samuel Caldwell was the first person prosecuted under the Act. He was arrested for selling cannabis on October 2, 1937, just one day after the Act’s passage. Caldwell was sentenced to four years of hard labor.

As part of the “War on Drugs,” the Controlled Substances Act of 1970, signed into law by President Richard Nixon, repealed the Marijuana Tax Act and listed cannabis as a Schedule I drug—along with heroin, LSD, and ecstasy—with no medical uses and a high potential for abuse. It was identified in anti-drug programs like D.A.R.E. (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) as a “gateway drug.”

The Controlled Substances Act was enacted mainly due to Nixon’s prejudice toward the counterculture with which he associated cannabis with more than any scientific, medical, or legal fact. In fact, in 1972 the Shafer Commission, an investigative body appointed by Nixon, recommended that cannabis be decriminalized and thus removed from Schedule 1, but Nixon rejected the Commission’s report.

This Schedule I designation made it difficult even for physicians or scientists to procure cannabis for research studies. Defining cannabis as medically useless and restricting research access ensured that it would not be developed for use in medicines through the normal medical, scientific, and pharmaceutical protocols.

Despite the federal government’s demonization, prohibition, and research restrictions, cannabis grew by popular demand and state action during the Baby Boom. Activist groups like the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) started to form and coordinate grass-roots efforts to legalize medical cannabis at the state and local levels.

Today, the federal government still classifies cannabis as a Schedule I controlled substance. However, the cannabis legalization initiatives that passed in 2020 will significantly propel legalization and cannabis reform forward. With the inclusion of the five new states that passed measures to legalize medical or adult-use cannabis in this past election, there are now 35 states in support of some form of legalization or decriminalization. That means that more than 111 million Americans, about 33% of the population, already have or will soon have access to legal cannabis.